Casting 22 Hornet

[slk]

I am using a Lyman mold for casting my 22 hornet boolits and I seam to have projectiles weighing in at several different weights. In can't seam to get any consistincy in sighting in with them. Is it because of the different weights. I know my powder and primers are consistant. I bought some hornady .224 jacketed HP's and my gun is like a tack driver. Just can't seam to get any consistancy with cast 22 hornet boolits.

Any suggestions are surely welcome

[BCall]

Seem to have different weights? Have you weighed the boolits to verify? In all my 22 casting, I have to be brutal in inspecting boolits and cull anything that even seems out to get top accuracy.

It is a 2 cavity mold or a single? Could be the cavities don't match exactly. Which mold, what load? What kind of groups? How fast are you driving them? What gun? Lots of variables, what kind of groups are you getting?

[slk]

Lyman 2 cavity, 225438, 44 gr., imr4227, 1909fps, Lyman #2

Rifle ruger, groups are way out there. 3 to 4 inches sometimes at 50 yards. With the jacketed HP store bought it shoots like it should. I just hate to have to spend the money on factory stuff when I should be able to get something reasonable from cast boolits. I just for the life of me can't figure it out what is going wrong

The weights seam to vary from 33.5-44.1. I do have quite a few that are exactly 44 gr

Steve

[Larry Gibson]

Sizing?

Lube?

GC'd?

FL sized cases or NS'd?

Primers; SR or SP?

Larry Gibson

[slk]

They are sized and lubed with the lyman orange stuff. Tried both primers makes no difference. Full sized and kneck sized makes no difference. Using gas checks also..........

[jvg5576]

Are you weighing and sorting your cases? My group sizes decreased by almost half after I started weighing and sorting both cases and boolits.

Also, have you tried any other powders? There is a great article ("Cast Bullets in the 22 Hornet") at the CASTPICS site. The link to the site is at the bottom of the forum page if you haven't seen it.

[DrB]

+1 on the cases... RP vs WW are very different in weight, and case capacity. You are likely to get significantly different poi.

[BCall]

33.5 to 44.1 gr? If that is the spread you are getting, I don't think you are getting good well formed boolits. What's that a 25% variation? I can usually hold variations after culling to around 2 to three tenths.

I would find some perfect ones, and check weights to get a number of them at the same weight. Use small pistol primers and try again. Neck sized brass. Are you expanding or flaring the case necks before seating?

[swheeler]

Lyman 2 cavity, 225438, 44 gr., imr4227, 1909fps, Lyman #2

Rifle ruger, groups are way out there. 3 to 4 inches sometimes at 50 yards. With the jacketed HP store bought it shoots like it should. I just hate to have to spend the money on factory stuff when I should be able to get something reasonable from cast boolits. I just for the life of me can't figure it out what is going wrong

The weights seam to vary from 33.5-44.1. I do have quite a few that are exactly 44 gr

Steve

I do hope that 33.5 is a typo, if not, forget about hitting anything until you figure that problem out.

[slk]

Oh heck.... yes I meant 43.5-44.1

[StrawHat]

Everything about the 22 Hornet is small. So also, the tolerances must be small, if you want good accuracy. You need to be able to cast a lot closer to a given weight than +/- .3 grains. That is a wide spread. Even sorting them and shooting like weights, with that spread, will give you a lot of variation.

Try to be more consistant in how you pour the lead into the mold. If fill out is still random, perhaps you need to improve the venting of the mold. Or the temperature of the lead. Unfortunately, there are lots of ways to get to the goal and you need to try a few of tehm.

Also, you mentioned jacketed bullets grouped well. You need to get the copper out of the bore if you expect boolits to fly true.

I shoot the forerunner to the Hornet (mine is a 22 WCF), and it is an exercise in patience! But when I find the correct load, it will be worth it.

[largom]

If you have not done these things, I would suggest:
1. Clean ALL of the copper from your bore. Very important!
2. Sort your cases by head-stamp.
3. Resize your cases and trim to same length.
4.Weigh your cases and sort into groups that weigh the same or as close as possible.
5. Weigh your boolits and sort into groups that weigh +/- .1
6. Allow your barrel to cool 3 minutes between shots.

If these things fail to improve your groups you may try different seating depths, neck tension, or a larger boolit diameter. Try unsized boolits if your gun will chamber them.

Larry

[kenyerian]

Do you know your bore size? Some of the older 22 Hornets were tighter (.223) while most of the newer ones I have slugged measure .224. very important to slug your barrel.

[catboat]

You mention you have sized your bullets, but to what diameter? You may want to try to be 0.002" over GROOVE diameter.

Have you slugged your bore? If not, try oiling your bore first, then drop an -unsized, non=gas checked bullet (lubricate your entire bullet-not just the grooves- with something like sizing lube, Johnson's past wax, light grease etc). into your chamber and tap it through your barrel with a push rod.

Collect and measure your bullet diameter (groove diameter, the largest diameter). Then size 0.001" to 0.002" over the groove diameter. I apologize in advance if you already know this.

What is the unsized diameter of your cast bullet? If you are sizing it down any, you can easily try a larger diameter bullet scenario simply by lubing (pan lube, or try two coats of Lee liquid lube), and gas checking.

I have a 222 Remington-chambered Sako a1 that I'm thinking about setting up for cast bullets. Many of the .224 molds seem "long" for the typical 1-14" twist in 22 caliber centerfires. Your hornet may be 1-16" twist, which could be contributing to stability and accuracy issues (and possibly additive to bullet diameter concerns).

At least your bullet weight of ~ 45 grains is in a "good area" ( "short"), and not one of the 55 grain weight designs.

Try the unsized, lubed, checked bullet. Maybe you'll pick up a bit of diameter, and see of a larger sizing die would be a worthwhile expenditure. That won't cost you any money in new equipment.

Also, I don't load for a 22 Hornet, but I have read multiple accounts that cast bullets loads in a 22 Hornet showed improved accuracy with pistol primers, rather than rifle primers. This is an inexpensive variable to try. Combine that with your "control" cast bullet (standard primer/lube/diameter/powder), then try the pistol primer (change just one variable).

Another overall tidbit for good accuracy is to uniform the flash holes from the inside of the case. Most case flash holes are "punched out" leaving fingers of brass inside the case head. The degree of these fingers vary significantly (as well as the flash hole diameter itself) from case to case, lot to lot. I use a K&M flash hole uniformer ($15 years ago, and a great investment). It has the stop collar INSIDE the case head, not on the case mouth. Case mouth stop collars are, in my opinion a poor design. Case mouth stop collars are dependent on the length of the case, and if your cases aren't trimmed uniformly, then the interior case head chamfer will be variable. Lyman makes a typical "case mouty stop collar" flash hole uniformer. I'd avoid this design (and I did).

The K&M flash hole uniformer stop collar is on the front of the cutter, and stops on the interior case head. It is independent of case length. A good design feature for uniformity-and that's the name of the game in reloading.
http://www.kmshooting.com/catalog/flash-hole-uniformer-tools/flash-hole-uniformer_master-standard_0080.html
http://www.6mmbr.com/catalog/item/1433308/900728.htm

Good luck. Be patient. Keep notes on what you do. It sounds like you have an accurate rifle. It's just a matter of finding the right combination of variables that will make cast bullets for you.

PS What are you using for powder? Have you tried Unique?

[slk]

I am using IMR 4227. The one thing I have not done yet is to sort my cast boolits by weight. It seams the only variable I have not tried yet.
I thank all of you for your input. I have tried just about all suggestions above. There are times when I can shoot good groups with my cast boolits (3 or 4 shots will be very good), but then they start going all over then it will group ok for a few. I will try weighting my boolits and then loading all of the same weight. I was not sure if the variance in my weights of cast boolits from 43.5-44.1 would make that much difference. I was weighting them last night and I have a good amount sorted that are right at 44gr. Will load a batch and report back this week.

My grove dia is .224 I have slugged the barrel. I did that before I ordered my molds and sizing dies

Thanks Steve

[Larry Gibson]

My grove dia is .224 I have slugged the barrel. I did that before I ordered my molds and sizing dies

So what are you sizing the bullets at? .224, .225 or what?

What is the twist of the barrel? Or what is the make of the rifle?

Also are you NSing with the FL die backed out? If so and even when FL sizing the thin necks of many cases will stretch crooked when pulled over the expander. Consider a Lee collet die to actually just neck size and keep the necks straight and concentric to the bore.

Also with that weight cast bullet IMR4227 at that low velocity is not burning efficiently. My guess is the load has a very large extreme spread. I suggest you weight sort the bullets, use the largest spread of +/- .5 gr in the middle weight range and use those. Switch to Unique powder and work up from 3.5 gr to 4.5 gr in .2 gr increments. Use standard strength SP primers. Doing this should get you down in a consistent accuracy range. Once there then you can tweek for higher velocity if desired.

BTW; the 225438 has shot well out of a lot of different 22 hornets over the years. I currently have 4 22 Hornets. The Hornet can be tricky but once you understand it's quirks accuracy is not difficult, especially with the 225432 cast bullet.

Larry Gibson

[canyon-ghost]

Omg, the bore size monster! No, you say 1909 fps? I use 7.5 grains of IMR 4227 for the hornet. Since we use the same powder, you should know that the lead will shoot about 1/2 grain below jacketed rounds. You get it going too fast and it spreads out the group. Within 3 feet of the targets isn't a group, lol.

I suspect your alloy is messing you up. Try wheelweight, all wheelweight, good consistent lead. When you weigh them, don't be afraid to throw out the light ones, use the medium heavy ones within .7 grains of each other. Should have about a handful that are too heavy.

Then brass, use the most brass of one batch, maybe a batch of 500, all identical. Once they've been fired, neck size!! Neck sizing works wonders, lets the little case puff out all it wants and stay there.

My hornet fires about 100 fps slower than jacketed and finds the target better.

[leadman]

I shoot a K-Hornet and also had a Hornet I sold. The mold cools very quick with these little boolits so cast faster and/or turn up the pot temperature.
I would water quench the boolits and sort so you have max a .5gr spread. Make sure no lead is being scraped when seating the boolit. Should not have to crimp and if you do make sure you are not sizing down the boolit.
If WQ does not help try some linotype or heat treat the little buggers.
Larry's advice on powder is spot on. If you don't have BE I have found 700X to be a good light load powder.
I do push cast in my K-Hornet using WC680, which is similar to AA680. I can hit 2,700 fps with great accuracy and no leading.
I usually seat the boolit to just barely engrave the rifling.

[altheating]

I tried to Lyman boolits with the same results as you had SLK. After 6 months I finally sent my Ruger out to CPC to have it re-chambered to 22 K Hornet, re-crowned and had the bolt tightened. I also started to use the BRP 226-47 grain pill when I got it back. Mine too would shoot factory rounds very well. It now shoots great with lead. The cost to have CPC do the work was reasonable. It shot so well that I also had them re-chamber my Rem 799 and my Browning micro A Bolt to 22 K Hornet using the same reamer. My loads using the BRP 226-47 grainer chrono's at 2556 fps. Anything out to 150 yds gets a hole in it. I'm sure it will do more but I haven't had the opportunity.